Thursday, April 11, 2013

National Poetry Month Poem-A-Day, #11

The Present

I wanted to give you something —no stone, clay, bracelet,no edible leaf could pass through.Even a molecule's fragrance by then too large.Giving had been taken, as you soon would be.Still, I offered the puffs of air shaped to meaning.They remained air.I offered memory on memory,but what is memory that dies with the fallible inks?I offered apology, sorrow, longing. I offered anger.How fine is the mesh of death. You can almost see through it.I stood on one side of the present, you stood on the other.Jane Hirshfield